Utah Republican-elect MP Burgess Owens said he would join other Republicans on Jan. 6 to challenge Congressional approval of the Electoral College’s final vote in favor of President-elect Joe Biden.
Owens said The Salt Lake Tribune that he believes President Donald Trump really won the November elections, saying, “There is no doubt in my mind that I think he won.”
“I think it is the right thing to do,” said Owens of Republican attempts to oppose the electoral vote. “More than seventy percent of conservatives say this [election] is not fair. We, the people, should have the opportunity to have this conversation versus [just] people in black robes. “
Zach Gibson / Getty
The “black robes” refer to judges, some appointed by Trump, who rejected all but one of the nearly 60 cases alleging widespread electoral fraud presented by the Trump campaign and other Republican officials. The cases were closed or dropped due to lack of evidence.
Owens’ comment also referred to an early December poll at Quinnipiac University, which found that 77 percent of Republican voters believed there was widespread fraud in the presidential election. The poll surveyed 978 registered voters across the country and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Owens is one of 10 new freshmen in the House who plan to join the Republican Party’s challenges to electoral voting. Owens says Congress will hear evidence of widespread voter fraud that no one has ever heard before, although he did not elaborate. He also said he would accept the legitimacy of whoever is elected president.
Owens, a former professional football player for the Oakland Raiders who helped the team win the 1980 Super Bowl, is a Mormon convert who supported Trump out loud and made several appearances on Fox News. Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. campaigned for Owens during the election. Last November, Owens won his race against Democratic representative Ben McAdams by just one percent.
Congressional approval, which takes place on January 6, is usually a formality that officially certifies the winner of the election before taking office. However, this year, some Republican congressmen promised to use the Electoral Counting Act of 1887 to challenge the final count of the Electoral College.
The Electoral Counting Law would require the Senate and the House to hold a two-hour debate before voting on the approval of counting the electoral votes of states with disputed results. The Republican challenge to the election result is unlikely to overthrow it, since a successful challenge would require majorities in both chambers of Congress to vote in favor.
“In 10 years in the NFL, I played a lot of lost games,” Owens told Tribune. “If you leave everything on the pitch and do everything you can and there’s nothing left, then it’s a winning game, regardless of the score.”
President-elect Joe Biden won the November elections by more than 7 million votes and 74 electoral votes.
Newsweek contacted Owen’s campaign for comment.